March 28, 2017

The Last Apologist

I feel moved by the plight of one Catholic apologist Dave Armstrong. He's kind of like a rugged individualist out there trying to make a living on his own, without the carapace of a Catholic Answers (not that they're doing that well) or an EWTN. He rides alone, like that lone cowboy, only the world has no more demand for cowboys. He points out the sweet spot in apologetics was 1995-2005 and indeed that was the hot time. Who knew there were boom and bust cycles in apologetics? He says there's a bust now because people care little for truth and much for relativism, and that could be true.

I'm trying to figure why the 1995-2005 years were good. I think it's because a generation of Catholics - the '70s and '80s kids like me - grew up without apologetics whatsoever in the unlikely quest to ignore religious differences for kumbaya purposes - so then we all got hooked on this new, amazing thing, like how the Bible isn't anti-Catholic after all. But then the bust happened, perhaps because kids today get enough apologetics in (chastened) Catholic schools or because we're already going to hell in a hand basket and there's no thirst for truth period.

He needs $7,000 and he's at $865. I contributed $60, which seems lame but the problem is that it's hard to discern if my contributing more would be contributing to him being where God doesn't want him to be. I can't tell how effective he is, and if you're not effective is that what God really wants you to do? Maybe so; our God is not the god of efficiency, to put it mildly. I could try to be heroic, a chivalric romantic gesture that is appealing (as many a lost cause is), but would it only defer the inevitable? The thing about giving is it seems like you have to discern what God discerns for the recipient.

Why this URL?

Why "poncer.blogspot.com"?

PONC is the business acronym for "Price Of Non-Conformance", which basically means putting a price-tag on a screw-up. This from a faddish business book from long ago. We were impressed someone could make money writing lines like "quality is free".

Site

Betty Duffy

Various Links

Quick Quotes

"Christianity brought reverence for what is below us." - Goethe____

"Your salvation is in the hands of God...There is no purely human knowledge of one's eternal destiny that can contain the infinitely greater certainty contained in your faith and hope through Christ our Lord." - EWTN Q&A____

"It is a truism in the interpretation of Scripture that its spiritual message is disclosed only to those who bring to their reading a consciousness of their need for God and his mercy. Only they ‘get’ it and appreciate the urgency of the message. The others are all bewildered.” - Msgr. Herron